The blog Civilian Reader has
a great interview with James Enge up today. James talks about the origins of the character of Morlock Ambrosius in Tolkien and Arthurian romance, and how the character grew beyond those origins. They discuss his influences, his passion for classical mythology, and how
Blood of Ambrose
, This Crooked Way, and
The Wolf Age
is NOT a trilogy ("'All you guys say that!' one of my brothers shouted at me over the phone recently, but in this case it’s really true.") The whole interview is great. But here's a bit for a taste:
After Tolkien, I guess the biggest influence on me would be American writers of sword-and-sorcery (and the allied genre of sword-and-planet): Fritz Leiber, Roger Zelazny, Jack Vance and Leigh Brackett. They are explicitly and unapologetically writing adventure fiction in fantastic worlds, but the adventures and the risks in their fiction are not merely material, and each one is a brilliant stylist (among other things). I like Zelazny’s description of his masterwork, the original Amber series: “a philosophical romance shot through with elements of horror and morbidity.” That’s what I try to write: philorohorrmorbmance.
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